


Maxine & Francine's Problem Solving Bar (No, Not Just With Alcohol)

by aceoftwos



Series: Worlds In Translation [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, F/F, Magical Realism, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-05 23:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18376109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceoftwos/pseuds/aceoftwos
Summary: “So, hypothetically, if we could replicate—uh, that is, if we couldcopythat, it could solve the entire issue.”“The ‘entire problem’ being Dracula-types chowing down on poor, innocent humans?”“Pretty much, yeah.”





	Maxine & Francine's Problem Solving Bar (No, Not Just With Alcohol)

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: You are a bartender. A regular plops into the seat in front of you and says, “Hey Francine, make it a double.”

It’s a regular Saturday at Maxine’s, just a little after opening and about half an hour before it truly gets busy. You’re wiping down the bar even though it’s already spotless, Max likes everything to be pristine before customers walk through the door, when a regular sits down in front of you.

“Hey Francine, make it a double…”

No one calls you that. Not since you left hom—the town where you grew up, almost eight years ago. It’s not like you really mind it, but everyone knows you prefer to be called Franz.

“Uh-oh,” you say jokingly. “Using my full name, I must be in trouble.”

Fen just groans and mumbles, “Scratch that, make it a triple. Is that a thing? A quadruple?”

“Bad day?”

“Caryn,” Fen says. “ _Fucking_  Caryn.”

“Really hoping you don’t mean that literally,” you reply mildly. Fen is one of Max’s regular customers, not yours, but you’ve heard enough about Caryn from Max over the years to have more than a few violent inclinations towards the woman. Last you heard, she’d stolen and claimed Fen’s research notes for herself. “What happened?”

“I _hate_ her.”

“We all hate her,” you say sympathetically. You turn to reach for the bottom shelf whiskey and pour Fen a double on the rocks. Fen looks like she’s about to down it but sips at it instead, morosely poking her finger at the ice chunk bobbing in the glass.

“She deliberately ruined a batch of my potions,” Fen complains.

“Don’t you work as a Medi-Wizard? That’s… super unethical. And dangerous!”

“Yeah, but…” Fen shakes her head, nose wrinkling. “I wasn’t working on anything official, just a personal project. I had an idea to improve my… um, y’know, that synthetic blood potion we sometimes use for fledgling vamps. If I’m lucky, maybe even a replacement food source for grown vampires!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah! There’s a genetic strain that we can’t duplicate in the lab, for whatever reason. I think it has to do with the innate magic of life—you know, every living thing has a touch of magic in it, even non-wizards! Plants! And in this case, animals. There were old studies that suggested animal blood could possibly be used as a substitute for vampires to drink but it proved incompatible because it doesn’t contain the necessary complex proteins for its use to be completely viable.”

“Uh… huh…” Where in the Hell is Max when you need her? She _loves_ all this science stuff. More importantly, she actually understands it. “That’s… cool… I think?”

“Oh, shit—I’m sorry, this… this probably isn’t interesting at all. I’ll… I’ll, uh, shut up.”

“It’s all right, it’s definitely interesting! I just… well, I was an art major in college?” Fen squints at you, so you gesture for her to keep talking. “So just, uh, dumb it down a bit. My wife got all the smarts.”

“Ha! Don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Franz.”

“No, no. I know my strengths and science isn’t one of them.”

“Okay, well, basically… vampires need certain nutrients to survive, nutrients found almost _exclusively_ in human blood. Synthetic blood can mimic it but not super successfully.”

By this point, Fen has pushed her drink aside in favor of leaning across the bar, her captive audience more enticing than the alcohol. Luckily, it’s still dead enough that Lena can handle the bar by herself until Max comes back to pick up the slack. You’ve got all the time in the world for Fen. Besides, you’ve seen them spend hours and hours sequestered together at the end of the bar, swapping geek speak. Surely she’ll forgive you spending _one_ evening with Fen, listening to her theories.

“Think I got it.”

“All right, so, turns out that a few other things produce the same stuff. Mostly other Hominidae, ah, that’s things in that same genetic family. Ours. Y’know, like chimpanzees and bonobos.”

“Right, because we, like… evolved from the same, uh, shit, right? Ancestors?”

“Not… not exactly,” Fen says weakly. You can tell that it’s a lot more than ‘not exactly’ based on her pained expression. “But for this conversation, yeah, that’ll do for now.”

“All right.”

“So, hypothetically, if we could replicate—uh, that is, if we could _copy_ that string of the genetic code into the synthetic blood formula, it could solve the entire issue.”

“The ‘entire problem’ being Dracula-types chowing down on poor, innocent humans?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Lena reaches past you for a bottle of the top shelf vodka, Heltia’s bottle. You got so caught up with Fen that you didn’t even notice her walking in. Her bioluminescent scales are bright and clear in the dim lighting of the bar, lighting up the lounge pool where she’s chatting up another mermaid that you don’t recognize. He’s blushing a bright green and grinning, playing with his drink.

Damn, way to go Heltia.

Something makes a snapping sound and then you hear a breezy, “Hello, love.” Max steps out of nowhere, shards of portal fading out around her. There’s light pressure on your cheek, and you’d bet there’s a purple lipstick mark there now. She slides her arm around your waist, her prosthetic warm against your skin. “You been lecturing my beautiful wife, Dr. Fen?”

“Hey, don’t blame me, she asked!”

“I did,” you admit. “I did ask, it’s my fault.”

“And what,” Max asks, “is today’s topic?”

“Oh! We’re discuss—”

“Nope!” You lean across the bar and press a finger to Fen’s lips, winking at her before pulling away to look at Max. She rolls her eyes but smiles anyways and allows you to kiss her and turn her away. “Fen’s all mine tonight. Sorry Maxie, but you’re just going to have to wait.”

“Fine,” Max says jokingly. “Keep your secrets.”

“I will, thanks.”

Max wanders away to check in with Lena, which… Yeah, you really should’ve checked in on her much earlier. Well. Max is back, so you suppose it doesn’t really matter now.

You turn back to Fen only to find her gripping her glass with white knuckles, glaring at something further into the bar. When you look, she’s scowling in the direction of a woman with dark curls piled in a loose bun on top of her head. Looking closer, the woman has a shit-eating smirk on her face.

“Is that..?”

“Caryn,” Fen says unhappily.

“Yeah, uh, _absolutely_ not,” you say firmly. “Not in our fucking bar.” You wave to catch Max’s attention and point to the woman, discreetly crossing your wrists in front of yourself twice to signal trouble then point to her again and fingerspell C-A-R-Y-N. Max’s initial concern morphs into hard anger, and she vaults over the bar and walks over to the booth that Caryn and her companion are sitting at.

Your magic has never been particularly powerful, and you normally don’t like wasting it, but it _should_ be enough for a little eavesdropping spell. Purple sparks between your fingers and you’re about to whisper the command when Max’s magic settles over you like a blanket, stifling the spark. Show off.

“You must be Caryn,” Max says, voice pleasant. And loud. She must be projecting.

“Have we met?”

“Not exactly, but I believe you know my friend Fen?”

Caryn goes pale and looks away for a moment. When she turns back, her mouth is set in a firm line and her chin is tilted up defiantly. “Maybe. What about it?”

“She’s told me so much about you! All good things, I promise!” A shiver runs across your shoulders. You can almost taste the honeyed sweetness of the magic coating Max’s voice, making her words soft and palatable. Caryn relaxes minutely and the smirk comes back. “You’re the one who developed the recipe for the synthetic blood potion, right?”

“Yeah, I am!”

“Do you mind if I ask how you came up with the idea?”

“Oh, uh…” Caryn shifts uncomfortably, exchanging a look with her friend. “I mean, it’s all very scientific and I don’t think you’d—”

“Because _I_ heard,” Max interrupts, her smile widening to show off her sharpened teeth, “that you didn’t come up with the idea at all. _I_ heard that you stole the research from the woman you were sleeping with at the time.” She steps aside and gestures towards the bar. “Y’know, our mutual friend, Dr. Fen.”

Caryn stands up and makes an aborted step in your direction. Here’s where you’d really love if you could still stand up and show off your full height, it certainly used to be enough to deter people, but your legs remain stubbornly numb. Ah, well, _c’est la vie_. You have a wife to intimidate people with now. You have to admit, Max does a wonderful job. Her typical clothing style, dark grey and flowy, certainly doesn’t make her look any less menacing. Especially not with the green glow of her prosthetic shining though the fabric, casting a faint green glow on the ground at her feet.

“That’s—”

“You misunderstand, I wasn’t asking a question. You took credit for Fen’s breakthrough.”

“I didn—”

“Shut it,” Max says. “And for that matter, you can get the _Hell_ out of my bar.” She opens a portal and shoves Caryn through it with a swift gust of wind, dumping her on her ass a few feet from the bar’s entrance. “And don’t fucking come back!” The portal snaps shut abruptly. You’re about to let out a whoop of joy when Max holds up three fingers, then puts one down, then another.

The door slams open and Caryn is there, fire in her eyes and around her clenched fists.

Another portal opens behind her, the familiar blue crest of the Enforcement Wizards plain as day on the wall, and Max advances on Caryn, forcing her back through the portal. Max says, cheerfully, “And that, my friends, is what’s called trespassing. And it’s _illegal_. I’ll be back as soon as I deal with this, Franzy.”

“Portal safe, hun.”

“Roll safe, love,” she replies, as always.

Then Max and Caryn and the portal are gone, the bar is silent for a breath, then a brief cheer goes up and customers go back to drinking, unmoved by the brief spectacle. Fen, on the other hand, is absolutely giddy, and high-fives you so enthusiastically that you roll backwards, having forgotten to lock your wheels in place.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fen says, giggling. “It’s just, _man_ , if she weren’t already married to you, I’d fucking kiss her, holy _shit_ that was amazing!”

“I love my wife,” you say dreamily.

“Uh, _I_ love your wife,” Fen says, grinning. “Hot _damn_ , do I love your wife!” 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. max teases franz about being short all the goddamn time, even tho franz is technically taller. max just has the unfair benefit of being able to stand. 
> 
> 2\. caryn's name used to be triss but i changed it bc the name was way too cool for that son of a bitch. 
> 
> 3\. fen's a weird character that i'd love to write more about so i may, at some point, go back and write about what went down with caryn and the synthetic blood potion. 
> 
> an: this was written in a fairly short amount of time and hasn't been subjected to much editing. so. concrit is welcome. i'd love to make this better and hear more opinions!


End file.
